


Warped asphalt

by vulnerable_bead



Series: From Russia, because of love [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Victor's childhood home, farewell to Sankt Petersburg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 09:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14017053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulnerable_bead/pseuds/vulnerable_bead
Summary: Victor promised to take Yuri to the social housing estate where he had spent his childhood. Once there, he lets down his guard.





	Warped asphalt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joolita](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=joolita).



> This vignette belongs towards the end of Chapter 11 of "Gains and Losses", during Victor and Yuri's last days in Sankt Petersburg.

In those last days he did many things he had promised me to do, never expecting they would be done as a farewell to his city. One of them was taking me to the housing estate where he grew up. It is far from the beautiful, historic city centre where we live and it takes us a long bus ride to get there. The high-rise blocks must have been renovated relatively recently, but they are depressing nonetheless. They are painted grey and purple, the colour of a fresh bruise.

‘In my time they were just grimy concrete,’ says Victor. ‘As Soviet as it gets.’

We pass by a low, flat-roofed building with rows of large windows.

‘This was my school for three years. Later I went to a sports school. Can’t say I learnt much at either.’

‘So how come you know so much?’

‘I told you. I liked reading. The library is right behind our block.' The present tense rings clear in my ears. To him, this library still _is_.

We walk on. At some point he stops abruptly and looks at the warped asphalt under his feet. I look, too, but I can’t see anything worth gazing at so intently.

‘I've… I’ve just realised that every crack in this pavement is familiar to me.’ He shudders. ‘Weird feeling.’

We come to a huge, very long block. It is pierced through with a passage in the middle. If it weren’t, a person wishing to get to the other side of it would have faced a walk of more than a half a kilometre, to its end and back again. Deep shadow fills the opening, even though the day is bright. In winter, it must be ominous. I say so.

‘Yeah. In the evenings women preferred to walk round the building, so many of them had their handbags snatched here.’

This is not what I meant. The down-to-earthedness of his comment contrasts sharply with my focus on the mood of the place. Yeah, his background is very different than mine, a cosseted boy from a safe little town.

We stop at the entrance to the passage. A row of posts divides the passage into two narrow aisles. Victor turns round and leans against the outermost one.

‘This spot is where I…’ He seems to be fitting his back into some niche, but the wall is even. It must be a niche in his memory. ‘Yes. This is how I was standing. Exactly like this. I was waiting for one of my schoolmates to come down.’

We are facing the footpath we came along.

‘There,’ he points. ‘It is there that I saw him. There was a group of boys walking down, and one of them was tall and broad-shouldered. His hair shone in the sun and his T-shirt was tight on his chest. They were walking together and he opened his arms, I think he was telling his friends some story, and shouted something, laughingly. And suddenly I had this strange sensation in the pit of my stomach and my cock jerked up, and I think I gasped. I had no idea what was happening to me. I was not yet thirteen.’ He chuckles, obviously amused by the boy he once was. ‘So, this is where I first realised I was gay.’

I glance around. No-one. So I stretch up and brush my lips against his.

‘I’m glad you are.’

He smiles, his eyes full of that special warmth that is just for me.

‘So am I.’

‘Who was that boy?’ I ask, expecting a tale, romantic or sordid I cannot guess. But Victor shrugs.

‘No idea. They passed me by, walked through to the other side, and I never saw him again. Let’s go.’

We come to a block that looks exactly like all the others. To my mind, this _sameness_ is the most dismal thing here. These blocks are like a low, insistent rhythm at the edge of awareness, maddening even though hardly noticeable. This reminds me of my time in Detroit. My turn to shudder.

Victor lifts his head.

‘Can you see the window with a checked cloth hanging over the sill?’ He points. I squint. Yes, I can see it. ‘Ours were the two to the right of it.’

‘You had two rooms?’

‘Yes. The small one, an alcove really, that’s the window on the left, was mine and the larger one was my mother’s. My grandmother slept with me while she lived. The kitchen was windowless. We counted ourselves lucky anyway.’

And I thought _I_ had it hard…?

Sitting on a bench opposite the block is an elderly lady in a headscarf. As we approach, she gathers her shopping bags closer to her to make space for us and Victor thanks her with a quiet _spasiba_. We sit down. A moment later she gets up and walks on. It is not that we frightened her away. She just sat here to rest awhile. Her bulging shopping bags must be very heavy.

Victor is watching her receding figure, a shapeless sweater, dark skirt, bandy legs, cheap shoes on tired feet.

‘Twenty years and they’ve not changed one bit,’ he says, more to himself than to me.

‘Who?’

‘Old women here. The way she walks, the clothes she wears, these nylon shopping bags, she could be my grandmother.’

Walking in the opposite direction, nearing us, is a young man, his age perhaps halfway between Victor and me, his clothes nondescript and his hair unkempt. What a contrast to Victor’s perfectly tailored jacket, his shoes, nicely worn but made of hand-sewn leather, and his neatly cut hair. The man’s face is pleasant enough, but his expression is one of concern.

‘Look closely, Yuri. If I hadn’t been a good skater, this would be me,’ says Victor. He is really letting his guard down today. As if, before we launch ourselves into a new life, he wanted me to know who he used to be in his earliest one, long before the ‘living legend’ was born.

Two older men walk past us. They are both dressed in dark-coloured windbreakers and one is carrying a faux-leather briefcase. On their heads they have the kind of caps you always picture Lenin wearing. Victor is watching them with narrowed eyes. As they pass us, we hear a snatch of their conversation, their voices gruff, and out of the corner of my eye I see a tiny movement at Victor’s temple. He has clenched his teeth.

I’m waiting for an explanation, but none is forthcoming. There seem to be limits to what even I am permitted to know.

‘And the window below the one with the cloth, that’s where the Zaytsevs live. Or used to live, it is just Mrs Zaytsev now,’ says Victor as if nothing had happened. ‘She was friendly with my mother. During her illness… She looked after her. I had to go to school, to the rink, I would never have coped on my own.’

I am sitting very still, not wanting to startle him out of his mood.  

‘Her son Borya was… okay, I guess. More than an acquaintance, less than a friend, ‘cause he was a few years older than me.  Not very gifted, so… he went into the army. Some years later I learnt, quite accidentally, that he had been killed. Mrs Zaytsev was a widow by then, so… You understand. I visited her. I saw how little money she had. So I gave her a job. Of sorts. She cleans my mother’s grave twice a month. I’ve been paying her to do it for a few years now. And I will continue to do so after we’re gone. I mean, if you don’t mind.’

I straighten up and look at him, shocked. I feel my eyebrows drawing together in disapproval.

‘You shouldn’t even be asking!’ I say sternly.

He turns to me, disconcerted.

‘Why? I thought… Since all our money is in a joint account now…’

‘Victor. If you bought a million-dollar diamond without consulting me, I’d be displeased. But this? This is not something I should have any say in. Am I asking you if I may send money to my parents? No. I am just doing it. So should you. Don’t ever ask again.’

I hold a pause and add, in a much softer tone, ‘But since you have, no. I don’t mind. I’d be ashamed of myself if I did.’

He considers this and nods.

‘Okay.’ He looks up at the windows of what used to be his home. ‘Yuri…? What would you do if I bought a million-dollar diamond?’

‘I’d have you have your nose pierced and wear it as a nose stud,’ I answer without a moment’s hesitation. ‘You’d look so stupid that next time you’d think twice.’

He snorts with laughter. Then he demonstrates that he has learnt the art of a logical non sequitur from me by asking quietly, ‘Will you visit my mother’s grave with me?’


End file.
